The "Elite" Coup Of 2016

There is an "elite" coup attempt underway against the U.S. President-elect Trump.

The coup is orchestrated by the camp of Hillary Clinton in association with the CIA and neoconservative powers in Congress.

The plan is to use the CIA's "Russia made Trump the winner" nonsense to swing the electoral college against him. The case would then be bumped up to Congress. Major neocon and warmonger parts of the Republicans could then move the presidency to Clinton or, if that fails, put Trump's vice president-elect Mike Pence onto the throne. The regular bipartisan war business, which a Trump presidency threatens to interrupt, could continue.

Should the coup succeed violent insurrections in the United States are likely to ensue with unpredictable consequences.

The above theses are thus far only a general outlay. No general plan has been published. The scheme though is pretty obvious by now. However, the following contains some speculation.

The priority aim is to deny Trump the presidency. He is too independent and a danger for several power centers within the ruling U.S. power circles. The selection of Tillerson as new Secretary of State only reinforces this (Prediction: Bolton will not get the Deputy position.) Tillerson is for profitable stability, not for regime change adventures. The institutional Trump enemies are:

The CIA which has become the Central Assassination Agency under the Bush and Obama administrations. Huge parts of its budgets depend on a continuation of the war on Syria and the drone assassination campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. Trump's more isolationist policies would likely end these campaigns and the related budget troughs.

The weapons industry which could lose its enormous sales to its major customers in the Persian Gulf should a President Trump reduce U.S. interference in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The neoconservatives and Likudniks who want the U.S. as Israel's weapon to strong arm the Middle East to the Zionists' benefit.

The general war hawks, military and "humanitarian interventionists" to whom any reduction of the U.S. role as primary power in the world is anathema to their believes.

The current CIA director Brennan, a leading figure of the CIA torture program and Obama consigliere, is in the Clinton/anti-Trump camp. The former CIA heads Hayden and Panetta are public Clinton supporters as is torturer king and former CIA deputy director Michael Morell.

It is thereby no wonder that the CIA is leading the anti-Russian campaign. Its task now is to implant the idea in the U.S. public that Russian intervention skewed the U.S. election towards Trump. The purpose is the delegitimization of the Trump victory in the eyes of the media and public but even more so in the eyes of the electors within the electoral college.

The CIA is heavily supported by the same mainstream media that pushed for Clinton during the election. (These are, not by chance, also the same media that pushed the CIA's earlier "Saddam's Weapon of Mass Destruction" campaign.)

The Democratic partisan and Harvard law Professor Lawrence Lessig is pushing the electors and offers them free personal legal support. He says the electoral college vote is now close.

Could 37 Republican electors, put there by voters in their states to vote for Trump, be convinced to move from electing Trump to abstain or vote for someone else, Trump would miss the needed 270 votes. The whole election of the president would then by kicked up to the House of Representatives.

Should the electors vote for Trump there is still a possibility that members of the House and the Senate could officially question that vote and cause delays or Congressional probes and legal challenges.

Though neoconservatives have no genuine support within the U.S. electorate they have a strong hold on significant parts of Congress and the relevant MSM commentariat. Many leading neoconservatives and war hawks like Robert Kagan, Max Boot and the Washington Post editorial board came out for Clinton during the campaign. Clinton even ran campaign advertisements with Republican Congress luminaries like Lindsay Graham, Sasse and Flake.

The House and the Senate majority may well be on the anti-Trump side if push comes to shove. But whatever the outcome there surely would be intense legal challenges and I expect the case to go up to the Supreme Court.

As an alternative to legal shenanigans Trump's inauguration could be delayed by Obama's order to the intelligence community to create a formal review of Russian intervention in the election by January 20. That is not by chance the official inauguration date! The selling point:

By ordering a “full review” of allegations of Russian into the 2016 election process, President Barack Obama is essentially asking the IC to make an analytical judgment about the validity of the election that will place Trump in the Oval Office.

A "compromise" in Congress could be to wait for the Intelligence Community's analysis and then discuss it before certifying Trump as president. That would end up with no result as National Intelligence Estimates are notoriously vague. Meanwhile the Vice President-elect would sit in as acting President:

If the President-elect fails to qualify before inauguration, Section 3 of the 20th Amendment states that the Vice President-elect will act as President until such a time as a President has qualified.

If the congressional or legal process around the Trump election gets delayed, that may be a state for a long time. The ruling Washington blob or borg could well live with an acting President Pence while Trump would have no official say in any government business. (Could Clinton then become acting VP or qualify as the new president?)

The media intervention on the anti-Trump side is heavy.

But first keep in mind that there is no public evidence, ZERO, that Russia indeed had anything to do with the DNC or Podesta or other leaks and the publication of emails by various outlets like Wikileaks.

Craig Murray assures us that he knows that these were not hacks but insider leaks and that he knows the leaker(s). Indeed he now tells us that the emails were handed over to him during a visits in Washington. Former intelligence officials including the technically very knowledgeable former NSA official William Binney concur that the hacking story is false.

All we have heard or seen so far are hearsay rumors and allegations of evidence. To me as experienced IT professional the case is technically laughable just as Murray explains here. If the claimed hacks occurred at all the alleged methods were so common that anybody could have done these. There is not even one claimed fact yet that is technically halfway acceptable as evidence that "Russia did it".

But still the NYT runs a big package of pieces telling us that "Russia did it" based on the non-factual CIA rumors and unprofessional IT assertions by Crowdstrike, the self-promoting IT security company the DNC hired and paid. Before that the Washington Post published major claims of Russian interference by anonymous officials. NBC News now tops that with "intelligence officials" saying Putin himself ran the hacking campaign. Authors of the story are the long time insider hacks Bill Arkin and Ken Dilanian known for clearing his stories with the CIA before publishing. The next story will tells us that Vladimir Valdimirovich himself was punching the keyboard.

2.) If any objections to Electoral College vote are made, they must be submitted in writing, signed by at least 1 House member & 1 Senator

3.) If objections are presented, House & Senate withdraw to their chambers to consider their merits under procedures set out in federal law. ...

Editorials and op-eds in the major papers are pushing the scheme along. Just for example from a long list A.J. Dionne in the Washington Post:

The CIA’s finding that Russia actively intervened in our election to make Trump president is an excellent reason for the electors to consider whether they should exercise their independent power. At the very least, they should be briefed on what the CIA knows, and in particular on whether there is any evidence that Trump or his lieutenants were engaged with Russia during the campaign.

The New York Times editorial laments about Trump ridiculing the CIA fairy tales it promotes.

Many people who have voted for Trump would be disgusted and outraged if or when Trump will be denied his office. Many of them are armed and would protest. Violence is ensured should the coup succeed.

Trump selected four former generals to joins his cabinet and staff. Should the troubles escalate we might be roughly in for a scenario as laid out in the 1992 military paper: The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012 (pdf) by Charles J. Dunlap.

From the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution: The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.

The House can only vote for for someone among the top 3 finishers in the electoral college vote. That pretty much rules out anyone but Trump or Clinton, unless an elector sneaks in a vote for a 3rd party.

Things in the USA are really feeling weird and I personally feel like something is up. Trump still hasn't won and I think that if he actually gets in he'll be assassinated. There is a major protest being planned next week. I think there will be some type of violence if he doesn't get it.

Has anybody noticed how utterly silent our Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Occupant of the People's House, the boyo splendour from Harvard's yards, vaunted professor of Constitutional Law, remains stubbornly silent on the question of Electoral College process. Is that water too profound for the fraud to enter?

You will not see Trump supporters in the streets. The counter coup will bubble slowly out of the bowels of the deep state, and as the struggle comes to the surface you will then see the public come out in support.

Anyone see Trumps reception at Army-Navy? A civil war of CIA versus the rest of America will be interesting. The think-tankers and general officers might be on the side of the globalists, but the rank and file will not support a globalist coup. Who can CIA bring to bear locally? BLM? Refu-jihadis? Drug gangs?

I did not think this was on the Elite's agenda but I don't know, they seem to be pushing electoral "soft coup" pretty hard.

I've been looking for a way to judge the relative strengths of the MSM and the alt media, so called. I guess this is one way, although bigger than I needed. If Trump makes it to inauguration then MSM has passed its tipping point and has lost its war forever. The White House will work to expose its lies on a daily basis and with formal, actionable, litigable evidence.

But currently this is still only a battle within a war. The war itself is to gut the CIA, as John Kennedy intended once. Lots of theories out there that soldiers would help in this effort. Since the US is a banana republic now, it makes sense for order to be restored through the military. But there's a lot of black income riding on the CIA's continued operation, so god alone knows what dynamics are involved here.

If Trump is ousted before he starts, he still has his movement of approximately 1 in 4 US persons. That's a lot of people to do a lot of things with, but I don't expect violence so much as a huge counter-propaganda swell to occur at the grass-roots level. In other words, if Trump doesn't get in, the war against MSM is still not won. I conjecture that Trump might fight that war to the end, and he doesn't need to be President to do that.

Lots of conjecture. Interesting times. One wonders, How strong are the bones of the Republic?

I doubt any kind of coup is in progress. This is Benghazi payback. Scandal is being hyped so as to start up a tribunal process where subpoenas will be issued. This is the Whitewater/Benghazi playbook. Eventually, subpoenas will kick up enough dust which will lead to new allegations on some unrelated topic. Since Trump has many many skeletons in his closet, eventually something will stick. I am doubtful this can work but that's what is going on. Unlike Benghazi, there actually is factual evidence that something bad did happen. Emails were stolen and published and those emails did tilt the election in Trump's favor. People are pissed. Benghazi was a scan. It led to emailgate and that was hyped disproportionately (even though you say the mainstream media was supporting Clinton). Meanwhile, Trump, a walking conflict-of-interest and proven flim-flam man, does not get his emails hacked and published. That's enough anger and fact to start up a tribunal process. Interestingly, it is backfiring already. Folks that are normally skeptical of the news are fighting this and calling it the new Mcarthyism. Fascinating since the GOP has a long history of Russian-blaming. The left just can't get a scandal up and running. Trump may prove to be teflon Trump. I for one want this investigation launched because even if Russia is not involved, it is worth investigating. There is a lot of smoke here and it did change the outcome of an election and Trump is known to be dishonest and he did, remember, publicly ask Russia to hack her emails. That alone makes it worthwhile to investigate and send out a couple dozen subpoenas and kick off a few congressional committees. Why not? The GOP rode Benghazi hard for 3 years, why all of a sudden is everyone so against investigations?

If the obvious result is violence/civil war/further division of the US population? Quite possibly leading to a breakup of the USA into several entities???

Then that IS the desired result.

Corporate interests and powers have exceeded the limits of mere nation states, there was only one country left that might have brought an association of multinationals to heel. It is about to get reduced to sufficiently small pieces for corporate invulnerability...

Excellent summation, but I believe the author forgot another important group who drool at the prospect of either President Hillary or President Pence. That's the people who benefit from open borders, and those who desperately want the TPP and associated treaties.

I'm just saying that Trump has even more deadly enemies than the CIA and the Israel-First neocons.

I think there are also many progressives who are supporting this. They supported undermining the Clinton candidacy after Sanders was defeated. Those who opposed Clinton now oppose Trump on the basis of his economic agenda.

Budget will never be a problem for the CIA, restriction in its campaigns by oversight is. Its budget heavily depends on world wide drug trade which it uses for information gathering, leverage and power as well as income. It shouldn't come as a surprise that airplanes used by cocaine trafickers are also used for rendition and other clandestine operations. (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2007/131207_b_cocaine.htm)

If a coup would succeed or Trump would be assasinated, civil war wouldn't be far fetched. Censorship by Facebook, Twitter, Google and the whole Atlanticist presstitude MSM fakenewsmedia wouldn't be able to stop that, just like they couldn't stop him from winning the POTUS ticket.

Mars over Alberta, (what a lame nick), Trump didn't ask Putin to hack Clinton's emails, please don't regurgitate that MSM meme here; it was one of Trump's finest lines "hey, Putin, if you're listening, they say you have a copy of Hillary's deleted emails, would you please share them with us?" (someone might feel like searching the exact quote)

All of the above notwithstanding, Trump has apparently been attempting to appease the Neocon Warmongers in his cabinet appointments of Crazy Warmonger Generals. This in and of itself is apparently insufficiently pleasing to Kissinger, the Zionists, the War profiteers the CIA and the other powers that be.

We cannot expect much from the grinning Oblambam. He hasn't yet been given his lines.

What a waste of time and energy! Jill Stein ridiculous recount and now the pressure on the electoral college under the ridiculous pretext that the elections were rigged by Russia! How infantile the CIA can be.
Trump has been smart enough to get the presidency, he will be smart enough to keep it. In January many heads will fall, so the future headless are running like headless chickens...

Nah, I don't believe even these idiots are hopefully changing the election results. This is about controlling the narrative in the media, and through that the agenda for the Trump administration, especially when it comes to Congress. The Washington elites still think that what the NYT/Washington Post publishes matters to most Americans. It's true, it does control the thinking process of loyal Clintonite voters who are trapped in the mental swamp of the DNC/Clinton/MSNBC/CNN messaging--but as the election showed, there are lots of Americans who want to think the opposite of whatever those outlets say. Unfortunately for America, these people just bounce over to whatever party doesn't currently hold the presidency rather than trying to build any third party alternatives for the common good. However, you can hardly blame them as the barriers to allowing any third parties into the game are immense in this country.

There will be no coup in this country. As was correctly pointed out, Trump has four top military generals in his cabinet including Mattis who is highly revered by the armed forces. Should such a scenario by the pathetic liberals try to play out, the military will absolutely revolt as would the people who voted for him. Most of those are 2nd amendment supporters. A poll taken today by Fox News showed that 85% of the American people do not buy the ridiculous line that Russia hacked the election. No one cares who really hacked/leaked John Podestas emails except for the unhinged left. American has had enough of the games

First bullet point on motives says CIA assassination programs will be cut by Trump fails because one, no one knows this, two, there's always somebody in the CIA who'll do what the President wants because it pays and three, Trump is apt to find different targets for the CIA. Duterte if he's a problem for the anti-China campaign, for one. They can overbill for spying on China. The CIA as a whole has no motive, except to pacify lame duck Obama until he's gone.

Second bullet point says military sales to ME will be cut. Irrelevant as Trump plans to increase military purchases by US. Nobody has a motive here.

Third bullet point says Trump isn't a Zionist supporter. There isn't a shred of evidence he isn't. Adelson, Netanyahu, AIPAC, none of those are shy about fighting their enemies. Nor is Trump. He's an opponent of China, not Israel. Wishful thinking doesn't count.

Fourth bullet point says Trump isn't a warhawk. Trump never said that he was against wars. In fact, when he said he would win the wars he was saying he was a militarist. The number of generals he's hired on confirms it. The only way this isn't nuts is if Trump is playing twelve dimensional chess...but that idea is nuts too.

while i don't put a coup past these people (they've engineered them in so many countries already, why not here) i also have to agree with another commentor that the CIA and pentagon aren't always the best of friends. syria is one example...though ostensibly there to "get ISIS", it turned into gang warfare with the occasional spook-funded crips shooting at the DoD-funded bloods. plus maybe they (CIA/DoD) each figure with the other one cut down they'll get the leftover funding.

as for the media and their role, remember these are the same geniuses who said trump had a 10% chance of winning the election. stein recalls have produced nothing and in fact have netted trump a few extra votes here and there. it is hilarious to hear hillarytards whine about "suppression" after the DWS hit job on sanders and his supporters. also funny that they think she'd be substantively different than him on many issues...everyone soiling their diapers over the taiwan call seems to have forgotten the "pivot to asia" clinton was pushing along with the TPP.

The question centers around the balance of forces. What countervails the fracturing of our conflicted elite? What reinforces the stressors? Have we factored in all relevant considerations?

My belief is that the fundamental battle is one of resources, as it has always been. There are so many converging vectors: collapsing ecosystems, final depletion of readily extractable raw commodities, unprecedented levels of migration, austerity, erosion of intellectual property, agricultural, and real property rights. All in addition the the industry of death America presides over.

Countervailing: increasing awareness and resistance from all quarters as the risks escalate,putative technological advances confound efforts at uniform data collection and parsing, depleted resources change the cost curve for endless war and rapaciousness changing rewards for the elites.

One thing for sure, this ain't about personalities kiddies. And Trump did not win without significant backing, even if the MSM was too stupid to look, Trump has big players on his side, so it's kind of coup versus coup in a way. Pass the popcorn.

Stephen Cohen says one of Trump's "big plans" is to do away with State department careerism ... suggesting that Trump is a danger to quite a number of people's pocketbooks and pet projects (and god knows how many $$$ friends)... so it's not just the CIA that has a "vested" interest, so does the State Department (remember Hillary's 50?)

I absolutely think Trump is dangerous in many ways ... however, in this matter, I think -- again -- Clintonism and the status quo is more dangerous

Oh, and I'm seeing headlines saying the "White House" also fingers putin's personal involvement but so far not in any reputable outlets. They must have seen "you've got mail" and are "going to the matresses" (which interpreted it as "all out warfare" while from the godfather it appeared to be taking cover and laying low in anticipation of strategic strike www.phrases.

Here's the dialogue from Godfather:

Clemenza: That Sonny's runnin' wild. He's thinking of going to the mattresses already.

Sonny: No, no, no! No more! Not this time, consiglieri. No more meetings, no more discussions, no more Sollozzo tricks. You give 'em one message: I want Sollozzo. If not, it's all-out war: we go to the mattresses.

"Republican congressman Peter King of the House Intelligence Committee said that the intelligence community appears to be carrying out an anti-Donald Trump disinformation campaign, as the President-elect continues to raise questions about the timing of “Russian hacking” claims.... King expressed that he was outraged that the committee, intended to oversee the intelligence community, has been learning about purported Russian hacking claims through the media."

Chair Devin Nunes says:

"“The Committee is deeply concerned that intransigence in sharing intelligence with Congress can enable the manipulation of intelligence for political purposes. The Committee will continue its efforts and will insist that we receive all the necessary cooperation from the relevant leaders of the Intelligence Community.”"

And Lavrov adds what is crystal clear to many: "I think this is just silly, and the futility of the attempt to convince somebody of this is absolutely obvious."

From the beginning of the campaign in 2015, it was clear that the Fix was in for HRC. That the Fix got foiled provides us with the current show further delegitimizing Corporate Media and a great many of its servants from both political parties.

An impartial observer would have to conclude that Putin's Russia is looking far more like the City on the Hill than the nefarious, prevaricating, declining Outlaw US Empire.

"In a speech in 2011, Lessig revealed that he was disappointed with Obama's performance in office, criticizing it as a "betrayal", and he criticized the president for using "the (Hillary) Clinton playbook"."

However, he is now apparently happy for Clinton the use the Clinton Playbook. What made him run 180 degrees?

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"In May 2005, it was revealed that Lessig had experienced sexual abuse by the director at the American Boychoir School, which he had attended as an adolescent"

So, presumably Lessig is for a full investigation of Pizzagate. If not, then why not? The People should know.

I doubt that sufficient electors will be found to tip over the applecart. Remember the electors have been chosen on the basis of that is just what they wouldn't do.
So as much as I would enjoy watching amerika's political elite committing hari kari I just cannot see it happening. As fella once said a long time ago "If wishes were horses all men would ride".

Weirdly the mirror image of this is simultaneously occurring on the other side of the planet, a small country in West Africa known as 'The Gambia' I dunno why it is The Gambia and not just Gambia, but I do know that like the Yemen, use of the definite article presages nothing good for the region especially its people.

The Gambia total population around 1.8 million humans has been run for the last 22 years by a bloke named Yahya Jammeh.
Jammeh, who isn't particularly keen on dissenting voices that get too loud took over from a particularly crooked and corrupt mob of assholes in 1994 to much jubilation from the peoples.
Elections have been held several times over the years and until the most recent one Jammeh won comfortably, but something changed.

The problem is that Jammeh who gained control of the nation from a gang of thugs controlled by foreign puppeters is no big fan of outsiders telling him what to do and what to spend his money on. Since the inception of Africa com by you know who that sort of shilly shallying has become less acceptable to the derps of Langley & Foggy Bottom so a few years back they grabbed a few children of the former regime flew em out showered em with dollars and encouraged then to stir up trouble via the net and a radio station beamed in from outside the country. This year a returned expat by the name of Adama Barrow who had been vetted and passed by afore mentioned assholes determined to control every human on the planet, threw his hat in the ring & ran for prez.

So the election was held and Jammeh lost, he went on TV and said OK fair do I lost I'm outta here.
Then a coupla days later the electoral office said hang on there's been a miscount Barrow was given 26,000 votes out of nowhere. It immediately became apparent that amerika had brought some of their tricks from home to Gambia's little party, so Jammeh has said "Oi! Foreign interference - this election is null and void".

Since then the neolibs and their mouthpieces aka the mainstream media have been saying "So what? Even taking out the 26,000 Barrow still has a coupla thousand more than you so on yer bike little man. The Barrow mob streamed information into the Gambia - big fucking deal. Who cares who paid for it the voters heard took it on on-board and voted accordingly. What's the issue?"

Hmm one could argue the same back home in amerika. The content of the emails is correct, even if the russkies did leak it which is highly doubtful - so what? The voters saw who Clinton was and didn't like what they saw, that is what they are meant to do so where is the problem?

Of course it is all a storm in a teacup the electors will follow the vote on Monday. Why?
Trump has been quick to get the puppet-masters among the corporatists on side The chair of Goldman Sachs no less, so any coup if it happened would be by displaced monkeys - the organ grinders have done as they always do and gotten down with the new regime. They will not be happy with any disruption to their divine right to accumulate wealth and there is no doubt the chaos that would ensue from the destruction of the Trompe-l'œil that is the amerikan political structure would disrupt money making, likely for an extended period.

This isn't a coup on the brew - it is the extinction burst of neoliberalism before it's well earned demise.

I wouldn't count on the American citizens to rise up and do much of anything other than get mad. We've been so complacent for so long that a sort of lethargy and hopelessness has firmly settled it. And I'm sure the "powers-that-be" are well aware of this.

Turns out again the u.s. are a gigantic banana republic. As such they eventually will succumb to a second civil war. Syria will look like a kindergarden. And the rest of the world will have a very hard time to survive it.

"I absolutely think Trump is dangerous in many ways ... however, in this matter, I think -- again -- Clintonism and the status quo is more dangerous"

I wish for revolution but the citizens of the US are totally brain-dead. The brain-dead do not revolt ... they just sit on the status quo that is handed to them ... much like hamsters - just not as cute.

@26 much agreed. I think the idea of a 'coup' in America at this point is somewhat far fetched to me. Very surprised to see something like this from b.

As for Trump being "anti war," that's the most ridiculous comment of all. Wasn't he the one who said that we should take country's resources after going to war with them (can't remember exact quote). His advocacy for torture doesn't strike me as something a man advocating for peace would say.

I don't know why people are assuming he'd gut the CIA. That's a pretty big statement without much evidence.

Any faithless elector can vote for anybody (or at least anybody having the qualifications to become president). There would then be at least three candidates that the House of Representatives can choose to be president.

I shouldn't have said "at least three", since the House can only choose among the three candidates who receive the largest numbers of electoral votes. However, if a faithless elector does vote for somebody other than the main two, then there will be three candidates among whom the House can choose.

The faithless elector could vote for someone that he knows would have a lot of potential support in the House.

I wouldn't say that Trump's movement amounts only to 1 in 4 Americans if his inauguration is blocked. A lot of people who only voted for him reluctantly as well as a lot of people who voted for somebody else or who didn't vote at all would oppose an attempt to block his taking the office to which he is constitutionally entitled.

There is mounting evidence the entire President Obama intelligence apparatus has been compromised beyond repair. This is the fundamental reason for the DoD rising up to take charge of National Security. – SEE HERE –

With General Mattis as Secretary of Defense, Michael Flynn as National Security Advisor, General John Kelly as Secretary of Homeland Security, a top-of-class West Point graduate in Mike Pompeo brought in to take over and undoubtedly purge the CIA, and a lame duck struggle breaking out over the NSA with Admiral Mike Rogers, the implications are pretty obvious.

The white hats we have needed within the national security and intelligence departments are responding from a select group within the Defense Department. This DoD surge appears to be why corporate interests are railing against “too many generals”. The DoD generals also appears to be why all of those interests -within all of those corrupted political intel institutions- are going nuts thinking about what lays ahead.

This is a right-wing blogger, but my experience is that he usually knows what he's talking about.

To add to what I said in #46, a lot of people who opposed secession eventually came to support and even to fight for the Confederacy. Because they thought Lincoln was not constitutionally entitled to resist secession with military force.

My suspicion is that the cabal would be more than happy to implicate Obama ... and that's why he has done nothing ...

He did nothing (and no one seemed terribly interested in this "leak") because the leak itself was so unimportant ... the DNC had had it's email hacked, again ... like everyone had been warned would be attempted, even happen.

In fact, that's largely why nothing was "done" ... the FBI opened an investigation in July (iirc) ... so what else is new? excdept that the FBI has not signed on.

I think the other factor in Obama "doing nothing" -- although in a reckless near-repeat of his red-line faux pas -- except threaten massive cyber retaliation (which never happened) -- is that it would quite likely further expose the rifts between Obama, the CIA, the State department and even the Pentagon ... The cabal knew they could -- in fact -- count on him to do nothing... even if he "could" or "should" have reasonably been expected to do something ...

Now, they can buy his acquiescence and near-silence (even in the face of their wild exaggerations), because they can even further make him "look bad" -- trashing his legacy and future prospects further ... The Clinton's being the "gift that keeps giving" to everyone they touch.

Today's headlines say the White House confirms ... if that means Biden, I will laugh ... if Obama issues a hemming and hawing nondenial denial he ever said such a thing ... I'll sigh.

If you have ever bothered to read the document, it states the president is duty bound to use military force to protect the government in the event of rebellion. South Carolina opened the rebellion when they decided to fire on the US Fort Sumpter. Am I suppose history is beyond your ken as well?

@b @#50
shorter: It was a rhtorical question meant to highlight how insignificant the DNC leak was ... and how pursuing this matter NOW could end up smearing Obama as ineffectual, derelict even THEN ...
Obama's been protected from most Democratic criticism because he was the office holder and party figurehead (and aren't they proud) ... but I'd guess he's also among those Clinton blames ... because that's how she is ...

If she and her team are orchestrating this food-fight, I hope someone knows how to use a tranquilizer gun ...

If you bothered to read my posting with some care, you would see that I expressed no opinion on whether those people were right. It was disputed and unclear at the time whether states had a constitutional right to secede. If they had such a right, secession would not have been rebellion.

Lincoln, by resupplying Fort Sumter, cleverly (or too cleverly by half. if we think he should have been most concerned about avoiding war) put the Confederate government in a position where it felt itself politically compelled to fire the first shot.

Other people have done the same, like Pericles at the opening of the Peloponnesian War. And people still dispute about the extent to which each of the sides in that war bears the blame.

You may accept traditional dogma about American history. I try to think for myself.

After the election, many speculated that the probe of the Clinton Foundation would be laid to rest. But now, according to an exclusive report from the Daily Caller, senior officials at FBI headquarters in Washington DC have apparently instructed agents in the New York field office to continue their investigation of the Clinton Foundation. According to the source, the instructions were passed on to the NYC field office last week and involves operations in at least five cities, including: New York, Little Rock, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Miami.

The events so far have been quite predictable. This is my prediction that I first published on August 15, 2016:

Even if Trump gets a majority of the votes the chances of him actually becoming President are slim. Here are some of the tactics and tricks the Hillary camp could use to block his election. I cannot say what is the probability of these options, but they have all been tested in previous US sponsored color revolutions.

1) Massive propaganda campaign will pressure the electorate to vote against their favorite candidate.
2) If Trump still gets over 50% of the vote, the vote count will be falsified. (Something similar seems to have happened in the Austrian presidential election.)
3) If the election results actually show a victory for Trump, the results will be annulled. DNC will claim that "Putin" hacked the voting machines. The Supreme Court will declare Hillary the winner.
4) If all else fails, Hillary will call for a Maidan-style occupation of Washington DC. The revolutionaries will take over the Capitol and the White House -- with the support of pro-Hillary officials.

The first person AFAIK to figure out that we're being pushed towards potential civil disturbance is Changing Reason-- BEFORE we voted. His observations on Oct 29 are interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60nOmmLtJSY

b, the House has 247 Republicans, only 187 Dems; therefore, no possibility that it wd choose Hillary if the presidential race were to be thrown to the House. Only possibility I see of non-Trump is if Hillary threw all her electors to a different Republican candidate AND the remaining necessary electors deserted Trump. The person who has been selected for this role is OH gov John Kasich who has publicly asked the electors NOT to vote for him. . (The Senate wd then choose the VP)

I don't think the agenda is to knock Trump out of the Presidency, but there'll be a bit more destabilization. If they cd get enough civil disturbance -- or the appearance of it on TV-- it wd be a good pretext for net censorship and banning political activity, protests.

However there is a rule that I can't quite remember-- something about the electors' decision has to be made 6 or 7 days BEFORE their meeting. By all this consulting of lawyers they may have technically invalidated their votes.

Since historical records are now dogma, I seriously doubt you actually think for yourself. Your contributions here are usually of first class, but your acceptance of historical drivel is remarkably lame. The Democratic Party of the day was divided over the issue of slavery, the division allowed the nascent Republican party to win the election at which point the pro slavery threatened succession from the union, a question not addressed by the constitution itself. The event of Fort Sumpter served to open the rebellion the constitution did address and the confederacy met the consequences, as deserved I would add. Those my dear are the historical facts, not some nobody's opinion.

As a person of color i find it outrageous that anyone can even vaguely support Trump. As a 'foreigner' living here for 25 years and becoming an American citizen legally i am appalled at the silence and indifference several Whites on the Left (supposedly having my back) who blatantly or subversively support this racist pig.

If the anti-Trump brigade led by Clintonistas topple the orange dbag i can only smile at the outcome !!

Serving up a little fake news, then? Craig Murray's assertions seem less well sourced the reporting on Russian interventions. Elite coup vs. foreign invasion? Let's go coup! It will prevent the frying of the planet and racist pogroms here in the US.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta is demanding that electors are subjected to "a special intelligence briefing" by the CIA. In practice this amounts to elections at gunpoint. The CIA would hijack the electors, hold secret "briefings" where they are told by generals and other men in black that the United States is under attack by its nuclear superpower adversary. Anyone who sides with the enemy is a traitor and will be held accountable by the Deep State and the Clinton Administration.

Apart from the criminal and treasonous nature of the plan it breaks constitutional principals. It is the *states* and their electors that chose the president. Not the Federal Government or any of its institutions.

But now that Mrs. Clinton has lost, her campaign is claiming the election really was rigged, albeit for Mr. Trump by Russian meddling, and it wants the Electoral College to stage what amounts to a coup. That’s the only way to interpret the extraordinary statement Monday by Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta endorsing a special intelligence briefing for electors a week before they cast their ballots for President on Dec. 19.

What should really distress Americans is that the losers are trying to overturn the election results based on little more than anonymous leaks and innuendo. Whatever Russia’s hacking motives, there is no evidence that the emails it turned up were decisive to the election result. Mr. Podesta is citing a CIA judgment that Americans have never seen and whose findings are vaguely public only because one or more unidentified officials chose to relate them to a few reporters last week.

Yet Mr. Podesta’s demand is that those same unidentified leakers now give a secret briefing to the 538 electors, most of whom lack any experience in judging the nuances of intelligence. Those electors are then supposed to decide based on information Americans won’t have seen whether they should invalidate the results of an election in which more than 128 million voted. Even Vladimir Putin at his most devious couldn’t have imagined his cyber-spooks would provoke this much anti-democratic nonsense..

Anyway, I didn't even want to express any opinion on the rightness or wrongness of secession. My point was and is that, once people were forced to take one side of the other, a lot of people who originally opposed secession came to support and even fight for the Confederacy.

And I was meaning to suggest that much the same might happen today. Many people who don't like Trump might find themselves obliged to support him in a civil war situation.

@22 wbl, 'The Washington elites still think that what the NYT/Washington Post publishes matters to most Americans.'

i agree. we'll see what happens on monday, won't we.

@26 s,

'Second bullet point says military sales to ME will be cut.
Third bullet point says Trump isn't a Zionist supporter.
Fourth bullet point says Trump isn't a warhawk.'

i agree that none of those points stands up on its own. may be true, may not be. number 2 is the most questionable in my view.

but i agree that the cia is on board for a coup. i have the feeling that both the cia and the dnc are going to be the losers here. next inflection point is monday.

@32 chet

business as usual. i think that's what's going to happen as well. the ec will vote tee-rump in. on 20 jan the bush/clinton/bush/obama interlude comes to an end. 28 years of neolibracon misrule. we'll see what happens next. i don't think it will differ strategically, but tactically. and the circle of beneficiaries will shrink, again, as its been doing.

@33 karlof, 'That the Fix got foiled provides us with the current show further delegitimizing Corporate Media and a great many of its servants from both political parties.

'An impartial observer would have to conclude that Putin's Russia is looking far more like the City on the Hill than the nefarious, prevaricating, declining Outlaw US Empire.'

i agree on both points. with regard to the second, especially - it's not that russia has so many fans, it's that so many are so repulsed by the war criminal thieves in power in the us that we're grasping for alternatives - and russia is the only one to have actually stood up.

@42 fl, 'I don't know why people are assuming he'd gut the CIA.'

i think he needs to, to protect himself. i think if he's smart he'll kill the cia ... and the nsa. i don't assume this or that about tee-rump, he's liable to run his personal-interest calculator and come up with any results. it's a diy project. they say he holds a grudge and is doggedly vengeful.

@50 b

obama has been the cia's man forever, and will remain so. you leave the cia feet first.

@62 irshad

the bbc has been rabid on the russians. are the brits just spineless, blairist megaphones for the lame duck usg at this point? or do they think they have something special to fear from the postulated eclipse of clinton/bush/blair/obama neolibracon agenda? i think the brits have viewed russia as their target/nemesis forever, and this is just the present manifestation. the us is their instrument to subdue russia, they've been sharpening their knives ... but now! oh, the horror! i think they're right about their relative position on the totem pole under tee-rump.

@63 petri krohn

i usually agree with most that you write, always appreciate it, but i think you're off here. we'll see on monday. if the ec votes tee-rump in ... he's in, seems to me.

Except in 2000, when the Supreme court stopped the recount in Florida, and this year, when voter suppression threw the election to the electoral college. And, if people will notice, the ensuing recounts were stopped.

Gore, as it turned out, really won Florida in 2000, which means him, and not GW Bush should have been POTUS in 2000.

Ditto 2016. Grab a clue people. We got Bush from the elites. We got Trump from the elites. And so it goes.

the greatest show on earth must go on! since there's no evidence trump is some kind of wild card other than a runny mouth, maybe the NYT et al are just pissed that they got it so wrong in calling the election? & so they'll eat, or at least peck at, the man who is himself a total media charade.

having lived through a coup/coups for the last decade in thailand i can assure you that things only get worse. and worse. and worse.

@70 petri

the wsj tries to represent the 'smart money' ... those who know which fix is in. they seem to be anti-clinton/anti-cia, presumably pro-trump.

i think most americans would be furious if the election were overturned (ordinarily they'd be furious that the one with the most votes hadn't won ... but this time they hate that one more than the ec's supposed choice ... it's immediate results and not principles that count ... on both sides now, apparently)

i think tee-rump is going to be elected. we'll see, though. definitely the most dogged reaction to an election in my lifetime.

of course, i'm just one month younger than the cia itself.

@76 jen

we'll see, won't we. i think it will be a failed coup. but if trump doesn't then kill the cia, their second traditional method may succeed. they may kill him. death, devastation, destruction, and deceit have definitely come to the 'homeland', just as you point out.

There will be no coup. Donald J. Trump will be sworn is as President on January 20th.

All we are seeing is a whole lot of whining by the loser corporate media, the bitter Clintonistas and the political establishment. The GOP is not going to devolve into a civil war when they're going to be in power. Trump has already nominated several GOP politicians to his Administration.

Of course the War Party with guys like Lindsey Graham, McCain and John Brennan at CIA are making a lot of noise. That noise is being magnified by the corporate media that lost so badly. The majority of the American people are not fooled except the losers!

I will agree with your drift that a divided opinion can have unforeseen consequences in how allegiances develop. I find it not only dangerous but disingenuous as well as disinformative to wrap an argument in pseudo-related historical equivalence, particularly when few have the resources to measure the validity presented POV. Only that I had objection about, either from my misreading or from your misapplication of historical fact, both likely contributed.

The Electoral College is not going to reverse the election results. No one is going to sabotage Trump’s victory except Trump himself with his lack of transparency. Trump failed to release his tax returns promising to release them after election and predictably did not. He just postponed his big announcement on his real estate business empire and how he plans to divest himself from it and postpones it until after the Electoral College votes. And this isn’t him sowing doubt in the minds of those voters as to whether he’s going to actually do the responsible thing and divest himself from his businesses so that conflicts of interest and corruption charges can’t be brought against him during his presidency as a basis for impeachment? I mean how thoughtless can he be! He’s the only one sowing doubt in the minds of the Electoral College voters with his opaque shenanigans. In spite of this glaring recklessness; the Electoral College will uphold the election results but Donald being Donald will find some other way to shoot himself in the foot during his Presidency and of that I have no doubt whatsoever.

As far as the pre-election hacking is concerned, John Bolton believes the DNC hacking is a false flag, and bite my tongue, I agree with that bastard on that sole point. However, partisan neocon loon that he is, he suspects Obama while I’m betting the Israelis did it; but we’ll never know if it’s the latter because, if it is, no one can cover their tracks better than the Israelis as they are very advanced in cyber technology. The NSA is stating that the reason they suspect the Russians is because the tracks point to very sophisticated technology although the fingerprints are indecipherable and no one has the expertise the Israelis have in cyber technology or repeated history in fabricating false flags.

Why on earth would Obama try to sabotage Hillary’s campaign after working so hard to get her elected just to get back at Putin? It’s absurd.

The Israelis on the other hand had much to gain: Trump promised to tear up the Iran deal; promised to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and Putin, who messed with Zionist plans for Syria, would be saddled with all the blame. Windfall motive for a false flag.

Bolton may be onto something with the false flag bit; and he should know since his mind works dangerously that way, but that Obama would sabotage Hillary’s campaign just to make Russia look bad is a bat-shit crazy theory.

And this guy is Trump’s top advisor on foreign policy. With Trump at the helm and this guy whispering in his ear; what could possibly go wrong--where do I start?

I also think the reason Trump has promoted so many ex-military to Cabinet posts is that he will need their support and the armed forces' support generally in the event of a putsch.

Scary thought. I would have thought you're paranoid until I saw what b writes about in this post. As we saw with the CIA and the Pentagon supporting different groups in Syria which fight against each other, the Deep State appears to have developed serious divisions. Trump is evidently aware of that and wants to restore order.

@ben #77:

Except in 2000, when the Supreme court stopped the recount in Florida, and this year, when voter suppression threw the election to the electoral college.

Yes, the 2000 election was stolen with a judicial coup, but Trump won the election fair and square. What you call voter suppression is taking measures to prevent voter fraud. The reason Trump lost the popular vote is most likely that millions of fraudulent votes slipped by.

Voter fraud is a core element of Democratic election strategy, as we know from Project Veritas. The establishment media completely ignores this.

In the event they do scrape together 37 electors, which due to state laws and pretty tight control of electors, I don't see happening unless the R party leadership allows it.

In that case, the country would get an alternate Republican as Penelope says. I believe that alternate person doesn't even technically have to be someone who ran. but note that in this case, instead of Trump, who got slightly less than half the vote, you would get someone nobody voted for at all. So if you think Republican primary voters were giving their party the finger this year, what do they imagine would happen next election? For their endless flaws, the R's actually do know how to play the game of politics. So not gonna happen.

It sets up a logic chain using fixed integers any one of which between outset and conclusion may not be actually true resulting in the piece performing the task of a 'belief hand grenade' at a later stage with respect to the objective.

'Tom Tomorrow is the creator of the weekly political cartoon, This Modern World, which appears in approximately 80 newspapers across the U.S., and on websites such as Daily Kos, Truthout and Credo.'

if we had a system of 'direct democracy' these Clintonista elitists would be in the catbird's seat now and crowing.

i have direct democracy in quotes above because no one who's given electronic voting any thought at all can imagine the present system of voting as implementing a direct count of our votes. it is the means of implementing unauditable 'corrected' counts of same ... after the ever-increasing disenfranchisement of the readily identifiable 'wrong' voters.

it's interesting to see the triumph of the 'populists' - trump voters - saved by the mechanism of the electoral college! and the apoplexy that has brought upon the 'elite' who are now clamoring for the electors to 'do their duty' and defy the 'corrected' popular vote in each of their states!

could the oligarchic nature of the electoral college be made more clear?

@84
There are endless studies, reports, and court cases disputing the claim you site from a project of the frequently discredited O’Keefe. Here are a few.

2007

The Brennan Center’s ongoing examination of voter fraud claims reveal that voter fraud is very rare, voter impersonation is nearly non-existent, and much of the problems associated with alleged fraud in elections relates to unintentional mistakes by voters or election administrators. Our report “The Truth About Voter Fraud” reveals most allegations of fraud turn out to be baseless — and that of the few allegations remaining, most reveal election irregularities and other forms of election misconduct. Click here for additional resources on fraud.

The state signed a stipulation agreement with lawyers for the plaintiffs which acknowledges there “have been no investigations or prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania; and the parties do not have direct personal knowledge of any such investigations or prosecutions in other states.”

Additionally, the agreement states Pennsylvania “will not offer any evidence in this action that in-person voter fraud has in fact occurred in Pennsylvania and elsewhere” or even argue “that in person voter fraud is likely to occur in November 2012 in the absense of the Photo ID law.”

A new nationwide analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 shows that while fraud has occurred, the rate is infinitesimal, and in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tough voter ID laws, is virtually non-existent

I don't know, b, but it seems like you may have bought into the hype. The decision on how to count the votes rests with the House of Representatives. But the thing that puzzles me the most, comes from going through the lists of supposedly wavering Electors, because most of them seem to be in the states won by Clinton; and I don't see how that becomes a threat to Trump's 306 electoral votes. A few states have laws which split the Electors between candidates; but for most states it is winner take all. Once a state is called for the republican winner, the whole republican state of electors is selected, and the democratic ones are set aside. I don't believe enough republican electors would defect to make a difference,-- in addition to which-- these poor slobs will undoubtedly be blacklisted and shamed until they draw their last labored breath. This is not a career choice for lightweights.

Another thing I don't understand is the purpose, or payoff, for ginning up such a spectacle. Someone hasn't thought out the possible repercussions of stirring up such a melodrama. What if the republican House wants to go all Medieval on the perpetrators of this political charade?-- and decides to supersize a congressional investigation, turning the House into a sausage factory of impeachments? An impeached person is disqualified from holding future political office, and is thrown out of his/her current office. What if the House decides to look deeply into who might have been threatening and/or coercing Electors? Some serious prosecutions would seem to be the door prize.

And how can generating political havoc be a responsible, or even rational objective?

The present rift within the elites can be framed as a conflict between traditional US capitalism (robber barons and wars against Spain and in Central America, to give an idea) on one side, and the post-WW2 imperialistic structures (CIA, the industrial-military complex) on the other.

US capitalism hasn't really been dominant since FDR was elected in 1932, although it got its "little wars" back after his death, and its obscene profits with the neolibs. Now for the first time after almost a century it feels the need to become politically dominant again, to fire the inept servants of globalist policies (Obama, Clinton and practically the whole political establishment), rein in the CIA, terminate the endless wars rhetoric (war on terror, clash of civilizations, new cold war, export of democracy, R2P, etc), and pursue policies friendly to "national" business without risking WW3 with Russia

it provides both a theoretical framework and a historical reconstruction of post-WW2 events, and I think it's very useful to understand the nature of the struggle in which the US elites are now engaged in

The major flaw in this scheme to delegitimise Trump is that it overlooks the fact that he's smarter (and much less forgetful) than the whole of the hi-profile, eerily inept, pro-Israel Apparatchik & Traitor Collective. His public reminder that the CIA are the liars who invented Saddam's WMD was a unforgettable master-stroke. And The People won't forget it. And if that doesn't swing things his way, he'll come up with an even better one if, and only when, necessary.

Its being managed so neither can be Prez. The election is void-ish. Popular vote and to be proven slant against Hillary gives top seat to Democrats. The Republicans get second seat plus hold their gains in both houses. A fair deal for the machine. In mean time information clamps are positioned to limit response capability. Extra stoppage capacity trialled internet of things crash few months back.

Can you please use A Href Html Tags for long links because if you don't they automatically widen the page and it becomes impossible and frustrating to read. See allowed HTML tags on right side of page and if you don't know how to use it Type: how to do a href in html into your search engine, press return and simple instructions come out top of the page.

It's maybe OT and maybe not but the occasional talk here about who won the popular vote is truly an irrelevance, which Trump himself put into its correct perspective. He said that he campaigned to win the Electoral College, i.e. by targeting 14 states or thereabouts. If there had not been an Electoral College, said Trump and I absolutely believe him, he would have targeted the popular vote on the coasts in about 3 states, and won that way.

His campaign was very smartly managed. He contested per the rules, and won the contest. He always was going to. And he's not going to have the win taken away from him by people of lesser caliber. Apparently, he takes pleasure in revenge also.

Whether Russia made Trump the winner is a toss-up to me. I thought Comey's last minute cautionary letter was really what tipped the scale. The rest was good old-fashioned marketing and Trump's splitting open issues while Clinton consistently underpromised on solutions (e.g. cost of education and healthcare) and engaged in hypocritical pontification.

I saw in passing some FBI agent on TV who basically said that the FBI tried to alert the DNC that there was suspicious activity and was passed on to a help desk(?), the point being that the DNC was oblivious to the fact that they had been attacked... doesn't add up.

"When the FBI attempted to alert a DNC tech-support contractor that a hacker had breached the committee’s protected network, the staffer conducted a brief search of the DNC computer system logs to look for signs of intrusion. Even after the FBI continued to call over several weeks, the tech worker did little to heed the bureau’s warnings. According to an internal memo, the staffer said he “had no way of differentiating the call I just received from a prank call,” the Times reported." http://freebeacon.com/national-security/report-dnc-ignored-fbi-warnings-regarding-russian-cyber-attack/

But the crux of the biscuit is that the Borgians are screaming bloody murder about the Russian cyberbandits BUT the media pretty much buried the whole story during the campaign lest anyone actually read the CONTENT of the stolen emails and realize what a fraud the DNC and the Clinton Foundation are. I doubt that mainstream America has any awareness about Guccifer, Wikileaks, Sanders-suppression or anything. The collective memory can only accomodate so much issue-pounding so the narrative about Allepo "falling" and Evil Putin pulling the strings for Trump is all there is. Are any Western Media reporters tracking the green bus convoy? Would more than 1 out of 10 average American pedestrians know which country Idlib is in?

I get the same feeling I got in the weeks leading up to Desert Shield, only this time it's worse. Nature abhors a void.